Southern Company Services (SCS) has teamed with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America and AECOM Technical Services to test improvements to carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) processes. The goal of this project is to evaluate the improvements of an integrated stripper/reboiler, particulate matter management, and new solvent on the existing 25 MWe-scale, amine-based Kansai Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery (KM-CDR™) process at Southern Company’s Plant Barry. The KM-CDR at Plant Barry is a fully-integrated CCS plant and has achieved 90 percent CO2 capture at a production rate of 500 metric tons per day. The large-scale pilot plant uses the proprietary KS-1 solvent, which shows several benefits relative to monoethanolamine-based processes. The key technical challenges of high-steam consumption, solvent performance degradation, and process equipment footprint will be investigated. During Phase I, SCS will perform a preliminary techno-economic analysis, preliminary design, and technology gap analysis; integrate results from previous amine-based CO2 capture process testing; and define the project plan to include baseline, parametric, and long-term operations testing.

Projects for the large-scale (equivalent of 10 to +25 MWe) pilot testing of post-combustion CO2 capture technology systems are being conducted in two phases, with a competitive downselect to continue from Phase I into Phase II. This project was selected for Phase I; a Phase II application must be submitted to be considered for the full project.

Project Benefits

Key technical challenges of current CSS technologies will be addressed through testing these process improvements in the large-pilot scale KM-CDR process. Successfully achieving all of the project objectives will make significant progress towards meeting or exceeding the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) goals of 90% CO2 capture rate with 95% CO2 purity at a cost of $40/tonne of CO2 captured by 2025 and at a cost of electricity 30% less than baseline CO2 capture approaches by 2030.